La casa nel vento dei morti

Holy heck, here’s an interesting new Italian film… La Casa nel Vento dei Morti, directed by Francesco Campanini and, of all people, Francesco Barilli, who made The Perfume of the Lady in Black way back in the early seventies. Barilli, who also works irregularly as an actor, also co-stars (as he did in Campanini’s previous production, Il solitario, a crime film which unfortunately I haven’t seen). The plot, apparently, goes like this:

Italy 1947. Attilio is a former Fascist movie star who has been disgraced. In desperation, he joins a band of robbers to carry out a burglary. Afterwards, he and his friends are hunted by the police and escape to the hills to hide out. They take refuge in a house that proves to be a death trap.

Reviews have been, well, middling. According to one reviewer on the IMDB: “If there was a bottom10 list for Italian horror movies, La casa nel vento dei morti would rule it for centuries”. Corriere della sella disagrees: “In the sad procession of cheap horror films, a nice exception. It’s a convincing departure from a noir, being set in Italy in 1946, it [emulates] certain films by Avati (as is quoted in the title, but not reproduced verbatim). Despite the many slips it’s a game effort thanks to actors convinced.”

As well as Barilli, the cast also includes Luca Magri (also from Il solitario) and a load of people I haven’t heard of.

The WildEye is a blog dedicated to the wild world of Italian cinema (and, ok, sometimes I digress into discussing films from other countries as well). Peplums, comedies, dramas, spaghetti westerns... they're all covered here.